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harrymcc (1641347) writes "Before Steve Jobs received his liver transplant, his Apple colleague Tim Cook discovered that--remarkably--he shared a rare blood type with Jobs and was capable of donating part of his own liver to him. He offered to do so, and Jobs turned him down. The tale will be in the upcoming book BECOMING STEVE JOBS by Brett Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, which is based in part on Schlender's unpublished interviews with Jobs and which will be excerpted in the next issue of FAST COMPANY."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "The Lenovo adware that's in the news today reportedly inserts itself via man-in-the-middle attack via certificate-authority fraud. The technique presents real dangers for the entire web, and most people don't know about it. The good news is that several fixes are on their way. At Fast Company, my colleague Glenn Fleishman takes a look at the risks and the solutions."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "After a string of flops, DreamWorks Animation is shuttering its PDI/DreamWorks studio. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, PDI, along with Pixar, made short cartoons that were part demo, part entertainment--and helped pave the way for today's computer-animated features. Over at Fast Company, I assembled a mini-festival of the company's vintage work, originally seen at venues such as SIGGRAPH."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "In 1973, an obscure company which had been making electronic cash registers looked for a new business opportunity. It ended up inventing the game cartridge--an innovation which kickstarted a billion-dollar industry and helped establish videogames as a creative medium. The story has never been told until now, but over at Fast Company, Benj Edwards chronicles the fascinating tale, based on interviews with the engineers responsible for the feat back in the mid-1970s."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "I attended my COMDEX in Las Vegas in 1991. Every year since, I've attended at least one enormous Vegas tech show--in this century, mostly CES. But I'm skipping CES next week,. Over at Fast Company, I explain why--and why I think that the notion that enormous shows such as CES were once more valuable than they are now is revisionist history."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "When Apple launched the Mac App Store in 2011, expectations were high. But it hasn't had anywhere near the success of its iOS counterpart, and recently, some major developers have pulled apps altogether. Over at Fast Company, my colleague Jared Newman talked to developers about their frustrations, which range from technical matters (highly restrictive sandboxing) to financial ones (no ability to sell paid upgrades)."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "In September of 1959, Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of the Soviet Union, spent 12 days touring the U.S. One of his stops was IBM's facilities in San Jose, which helped to create the area later known as Silicon Valley. The premier got to see the first computer which came with a hard disk, which IBM programmed to answer history questions. But what he was most impressed by was IBM's modern cafeteria. Over at Fast Company, I've chronicled this fascinating and little-known moment in tech history, which will be covered in an upcoming PBS program on Khrushchev's U.S. trip."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "In the era of clickbait, journalists like to make absurd promises in headlines in hopes of helping them go viral--and one of the most powerful, widely-made, silliest claims is that a listicle, photo, or video will "restore your faith in humanity." Over at Technologizer, I've written a history of the meme (which has been booming for the past two years, although I found a precursor in a razor ad from 1930)."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "In June 1967, a weekly newspaper called Computerworld launched. Almost exactly 47 years later, it's calling it quits in print form to focus on its website and other digital editions. The move isn't the least bit surprising, but it's also the end of an era--and I can' t think of any computing publication which had a longer run. Over at Technologizer, I shared some thoughts on what Computerworld meant to the world, to its publisher, IDG, and to me."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "If you used an PC in the 1980s and 1990s, the chances were very good that you used utility software which came in a box with a picture of Peter Norton on it. The Norton brand still exists, but those packaging photos of Norton himself are long gone--along with the whole classic era of utility software they represented. Over at Technologizer, I paid tribute to this one-time icon of the PC industry."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "On May 1, 1964 at 4 a.m. in a computer room at Dartmouth University, the first programs written in BASIC ran on the university's brand-new time-sharing system. With these two innovations, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz didn't just make it easier to learn how to program a computer: They offered Dartmouth students a form of interactive, personal computing years before the invention of the PC. Over at TIME.com, I chronicle BASIC's first 50 years with a feature with thoughts from Kurtz, Microsoft's Paul Allen and many others."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "If you remember the golden age of BYTE magazine, you remember Robert Tinney's wonderful cover paintings. BYTE's April 1981 cover featured an amazing Tinney image of a smartwatch with a tiny text-oriented interface, QWERTY keyboard, and floppy drive. It's hilarious--but 33 years later, it's also a smart visual explanation of why the future of technology so often bears so little resemblance to anyone's predictions. I wrote about this over at TIME.com."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "Google officially--and mischievously--unveiled Gmail on April Fools' Day 2004. That makes this its tenth birthday, which I celebrated by talking to a bunch of the people who created the service for TIME.com. It's an amazing story: The service was in the works for almost three years before the announcement, and faced so much opposition from within Google that it wasn't clear it would ever reach consumers."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "It's well known that the World Wide Web originated in Tim Berners-Lee's 1989 proposal for an information-management system for his employer, CERN. That document turns 25 today, and there's no better way to celebrate the web's birthday than to celebrate it. What Berners-Lee proposed was simple, expandable, social, compatible and distributed — so smart an approach to sharing information that it's easy to envision it going strong generations from now. Over at TIME.com, I posted an appreciation."Link to Original Source

harrymcc (1641347) writes "Google is releasing more details on Project Ara, its effort — originally spearheaded by Motorola — to reinvent the smartphone in a form made up of hot-swappable modules that consumers can configure as they choose, then upgrade later as new technologies emerge. Over at TIME, I have an in-depth report on the product, which Google is aiming to release about a year from now."Link to Original Source